Steve Mellon, Post-Gazette Volunteer Nancy Mossman, of O'Hara, shakes hands with an inmate in a maximum-security cell at the Allegheny County Jail on Wednesday. Ms. Mossman and other volunteers from the chaplain's office delivered donated Christmas packages this week to inmates over three days.

By Gabrielle Banks, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

As a light snow dusted the city, eight men in well-worn red jumpsuits stood at folding tables in Room 1165, packaging gifts for about 2,500 fellow inmates expected to spend the holidays at the Allegheny County Jail.

Each wore a waterproof ID bracelet on his arm, and, like the half-dozen volunteers who'd come in to help, a name-tag sticker on his chest.

Steve Mellon, Post-Gazette Terry Austin, left, of the Hill District, and Dennis Parr, of Garfield, share a laugh while packing gift envelopes Wednesday at Allegheny County Jail. Jessie LeFlore, background, a fellow graduate of HOPE, a 12-week recovery and reentry program, stuffs envelopes further down the assembly line at the chaplain's office. Click photo for larger image. Web exclusive View an interactive slideshow about the Christmas program at the jail, featuring photos by Steve Mellon and audio by Annie O'Neill.

Staff from the chaplain's office had set out a pot of coffee, chips, scones and cookies. Holiday tunes played at low volume from a boom box beside a decorated tree.

Minimum-security inmates Dennis Parr and Terry Austin kept up a steady commentary as they stuffed large envelopes stamped with Christmas greetings from the chaplains. Each inmate got a ballpoint pen, a tablet of white paper ("better than that yellow paper at the commissary," Mr. Parr said), a plastic comb, two small bars of soap, a packet of hot chocolate, a size 3XL thermal underwear top, a prayer ("That can't hurt," Mr. Parr said) and a sheet of paper with a 2006 calendar ("so you can work down your release date," Mr. Parr added). The $7 assortment, bought with donations collected at local churches, would arrive on the cell blocks, or "pods," four days earlier than Christmas outside these walls.

"It's gifts you need and it means, 'I'm not forgotten,' " said Elliot Jones, who was posted at the tail end of the assembly line, sealing each envelope with two pieces of tape. "Little things like sugar, mustard, little ketchup packs you throw away at McDonald's. ... They're like your money in here," he said.

Most of the inmates packing gifts graduated this month from HOPE, a 12-week, faith-oriented pre-release and re-entry program run by Chaplain Lynn Yeso. All program participants have been convicted of nonviolent offenses, she said. All are recovering from some form of addiction.

"It'll be the first Christmas in a few years I've been here," said Mr. Jones, 36, who developed his bulging biceps in jail, bench-pressing Formica tables and doing curls with stacks of plastic chairs.

"It was always a pattern and a cycle that, every year, I was here on a holiday." But after 19 or 20 years in and out of jail, "burning some bridges" with family members, he feels certain "this trip is different."

"I'm tired of letting my family down," said Mr. Parr, who is 24 and estimated he'd been in jail "20-something times."

A mechanical bleep blared above the conversation. "Attention all inmates. Lock-in countdown. Lock-in countdown."

"I got to go. Got to go!" Mr. Austin yelled out, acting agitated for a second, then breaking into a smile at the blank faces of a couple of volunteers who didn't know whether to take him seriously.

Mr. Austin, 40, a trained computer repairman, has finished several jail stints over the past 15 years. "I'm usually good for, maybe, five months, six months, before I get back into the streets and the drugs and the women," he said. "I kept doing the same thing and expecting something different."

All three men said they'd drawn courage this time from Chaplain Shawn Drummond, 47, a Baptist seminarian and former "Super-Max" inmate, standing shoulder to shoulder, filling envelopes with them.

"I've been shot seven times, stabbed once, OD'ed twice. I should have been gone," the Rev. Drummond said, as "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" played on the stereo. He regularly sets off the jail's metal detectors because of the bullets lodged near his spine.

He calls himself a "walking 'Hope' sign" to the older inmates and guards who recognize him when he goes up on the pods. On this morning, an associate from his days selling drugs and robbing drug dealers took up the position opposite him on the gift-packing line: "I told him I was very disappointed to see him in red again."

At the other end of the Rev. Drummond's line, fresh-faced Josh Watson dabbed at his watery eyes. One of the blue-tinted contact lenses he'd bartered for on the pod (for $10 worth of commissary goods) popped out of his eye after Brother Mark Lowrey told him a bed had opened up at Michael's Place, a transitional housing program Uptown. He might not spend another night in his 8-by-11 cell, looking out on a sliver of Mount Washington and the Liberty Bridge.

"I probably have the best view on the pod," he said, "especially at night, when the sun sets. A lot of people say they don't like looking outside ... but I do. So when I get out of here, I can look back and I can think about the times I looked at the sunset from a jail cell and use that as motivation."

One of the combs Mr. Watson was packing fell to the floor. He picked it up, looked at it and tossed it into the trash.

From the microphone at the room's mobile pulpit, Protestant Chaplain Dallas Brown announced it was time for a break. The inmates converged by the snack table.

"I might get out today," said Mr. Watson, 24, grinning and chewing a coffee stirrer.

"Yeah, right!" said Chester Belback, 31, with close-clipped salt-and-pepper hair.

"No, really. They just told me," Mr. Watson said.

"I'm out in 80 days. I got 80, T!" Mr. Parr called out to his workmate, Terry Austin.

"I could go around the world in that time," Mr. Austin said in his deep, gravelly voice.

Mr. Belback clapped Mr. Watson on the shoulder, congratulating the young man on what he said would be "a Christmas miracle." Both men have spent five months here. Mr. Belback, a recovering crack addict, is a first-timer.

"It's not like I had a bad childhood or was neglected by my parents," he said. His parents have said they will visit, for the first time, on Christmas. From the beginning, his girlfriend opted to tell his 3-year-old son and 4-year-old daughter that he's been sick. The children's gifts this year will be delivered by a program for inmates' families.

"It hurts every time I call. My son says, 'Dad, are you not coming back home?' " he said.

About 11 a.m., the work break ended and the Rev. Malcolm McDonald slipped into the room. He said he arrived late because he was "doing a death notification," informing an inmate that her 55-year-old mother had died of a blood clot in her heart.

"Obviously, life goes on for inmates while they're in here," Father Malcolm said. Chaplains serve these notifications several times a week.

After another solid hour of banter, snacks and packing, the group finished stacking dozens of boxes filled with Christmas envelopes. The eight minimum-security inmates returned to their pods.

	Steve Mellon, Post-Gazette Volunteers Nancy Crowe, of Dormont, and Curtis White, of Hempfield, deliver Christmas packages Wednesday evening to inmates in a maximum-security pod at the Allegheny County Jail. Click photo for larger image.

By nightfall, a new crew of 25 volunteers -- chaplains, deacons and Bible study leaders -- were assembled in room 1165, taking instructions from the Rev. Brown.

"Rule No. 1: No hugs," he said. "No. 2: Don't go into the inmates' cells." No. 5: "This is not a time to preach."

When a five-person team arrived on 7E, the commanding officer ordered the maximum-security inmates playing chess and dominoes and making phone calls, and the bare-chested guy still dripping from the showers, back into their cells.

At each cell, volunteer Curtis White passed a Salvation Army gift mug filled with peppermint candy through the knee-level slot while another volunteer passed in the envelope.

Several volunteers squatted down to shake hands and say "Merry Christmas" to the inmate squatting on the other side of the metal door.

When 7E's boxes were empty, the volunteers exited to the narrow sally port, and the inmates, who had been released back into the common area, looked in and waved at them.

Another announcement: "We've got an emergency going on. Everybody back to your cells."

The volunteers waited about 20 minutes, locked in pods throughout the jail, before guards informed them the locking system was malfunctioning. About 1,000 gifts remained in Room 1165, to be distributed over the next two days.

Early Friday afternoon, Josh Watson walked out of the jail, wearing a new thermal top. He left everything else in the envelope for his cellmate.